Nearly 10 years after his first Affordable and Responsive Community Housing (ARCH) Program prototype was assembled, Walter Kroner, a Rensselaer architecture professor, broke ground on his second "erector set" house at the beginning of the summer.

This time around there's a twist: Kroner and administrators of the ARCH Program actually plan to sell this incarnation of the build-it-yourself home.

	Thomas Griffin

Volunteers from the Charitable Leadership Foundation and the Troy Architectural Program Inc., along with Rensselaer students, began work on Kroner's 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom house at 1 Winslow Avenue in South Troy on May 31. The home — which can be put together by any amateur with a well-stocked tool shed and about 600 hours of free time — should be finished around year's end. After the appropriate tests are done on the structure, ARCH Program organizers will pick a low-income family from the area to whom they'll sell the house for an affordable price.

Kroner stressed, however, that the house has many valuable features in addition to its low price tag and near-effortless assembly — like its increased energy efficiency and easy adaptability. "There are very few products that help create community," said Kroner. "But that's what this project is about. Since it is very easy to add or take away parts of the house, it's easy for it to grow while the family that lives in it grows. And if a home can change with its residents, those residents will be more likely to stay for long periods."